When honey is ready

It's mid August. Anne lifts a honey box and it's heavy. The frames are glistening, and most of the cells are sealed with fresh white wax. She has waited two seasons for this. Can she take it now?

The first rule of honey is that it has to be ripe. Nectar starts out watery. The bees dry it down, then seal each cell with a wax cap. So capped honey is usually a good sign. But usually isn't always. Capped honey can still vary a lot in water content, from about thirteen percent to about twenty five.

Why does water matter? Because honey with too much water can ferment. Above roughly eighteen percent, the yeasts in honey can start to work, and you end up with sour, foamy honey instead of something you'd be proud to give away.

So beekeepers check with a refractometer, a small hand held instrument that measures the water content of honey from a single drop. It takes the guesswork out.

What number are you aiming for? In Canada, honey graded Canada number one can have no more than seventeen point eight percent water. That's stricter than the eighteen point six percent figure often quoted from the United States. So aim for seventeen point eight or lower.

Lower grades allow a little more water. Canada number two allows eighteen point six percent, and number three allows twenty. If you plan to sell, Ontario also has grading and labelling rules, which we'll cover in lecture twenty eight.

Now the timing, here in Ontario. Honey boxes can stay on as late as mid September, while the fall flow on goldenrod and aster comes in. But don't leave them too late. Once the supers come off, the colony needs time, and syrup, to build its winter stores before the weather turns cold.

Two rules protect your honey. Never feed sugar syrup while honey supers are on the hive, or the bees will store the syrup in your honey boxes. And never use a mite treatment with the supers on unless its label says you may. A few products allow it. Most don't.

Medicines have waiting periods too. For example, the antibiotic used against foulbrood has to be finished four weeks before the honey boxes go on. And Ontario runs a program that tests honey for residues.

Now let's change one fact. Suppose Anne's frames are only half capped, the rest shiny and open, and a drop of that uncapped honey measures twenty one percent water. That's too wet. She leaves those frames with the bees a little longer, or takes only the fully capped frames and checks them. Wet honey in a jar can ferment on the shelf.

The mistake beginners make is taking every frame the moment it looks full, and leaving the bees short. Take only ripe honey, and leave your colony enough to see it through. Ontario's guidance is that a colony should always have at least two frames of honey.

Here is the rule, in one breath. Take honey only when it's capped and, ideally, measured at seventeen point eight percent water or less, pull your supers by mid September in Ontario, and never feed syrup, or use a treatment whose label doesn't allow it, while supers are on.

Next, getting that honey out of the comb and into the jar.